The program, now in its 24th year, provides opportunities for established scholars or individuals who have attained distinction in their field to pursue research on topics that bring new knowledge and fresh perspectives to the field of conservation.
Recipients are in residence at the GCI for either a three-month or six-month term, in which they pursue their own projects free from work-related obligations, make use of research collections at the Getty Center and Getty Villa, and participate with other Getty scholars, fellows, and interns in the intellectual life of Getty.
2023–2024 Conservation Guest Scholars
- Yael Alef is an architectural conservator and scientific manager of the National Cultural Heritage Inventory Project at the Israel Antiquities Authority. Her research focuses on how digital inventories can best represent information about the cultural significance of archaeological heritage.
Cultural Significance Assessment of Archaeological Sites in the Digital Age: From Text to Spatial Networks of Meanings
(September–December) - Marie Dubost is a conservator in private practice in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, France. Her research focuses on the tools and techniques of gilded wooden surfaces in decorative arts.
Recutting in Western Europe
(September–December) - Stephen Kelley is an architect and structural engineer in Oak Park, Illinois. His research focuses on the analysis and retrofit of heritage structures subjected to seismic forces.
Cracking the Code: Earthquakes and Conservation of Built Heritage
(September–December) - Giorgio Buccellati is professor emeritus in the department of near eastern languages and cultures and the department of history at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on conservation in Urkesh, one of the largest early cities in Syro-Mesopotamia.
Locally Based Conservation and Community Involvement at Ancient Urkesh
(January–March) - Cornelius Holtorf is professor of archaeology and UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden. His research focuses on how the climate crisis is transforming cultural heritage.
Heritage in Transformation
(January–March) - David Saunders is a conservation scientist and independent scholar in Hertfordshire, England. His research focuses on the impact of new technology and practice on sustainability in museum lighting.
Sustainability and Museum Lighting
(January–March) - Bertrand Lavédrine is professor in the Centre de recherche sur la conservation at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, France. His research focuses on developing a methodology for describing photographic processes, and sustainability in photographs conservation.
Taxonomy for Photographic Images and Sustainability in Photograph Preservation
(April–June) - Barbara Lubelli is associate professor in the department of architectural engineering and technology at Technische Universiteit Delft, Netherlands. Her research focuses on salt crystallization damage to building materials and the mitigation of its effects.
Development of Accelerated Laboratory Test for the Assessment of the Durability of Plasters and Renders with Respect to Salt Crystallization
(April–June) - Aga Wielocha is a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Institute Materiality in Art and Culture at Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland. Her research focuses on museum procedures for collecting and preserving process-based contemporary art.
Having, Holding, Keeping, Sharing: New Art and New Ways of Institutional Collecting and Preserving
(April–June)